Love in Three Photos: Submit Your Photo Haiku

Slate wants your moving tales of love, lust, or heartbreak.

The challenge:Slatewants you to submit a love story in three photos. The photos must tell a story, as in beginning, middle, end or beginning, what you thought was the end before another beginning. We want stories of love, lust, heartbreak, makeups, breakups, and surprises. The three photos can span decades or just a few weeks. Captions for each photo should be one to two sentences. Shorter is better. Think of this as a photo haiku.

The best stories will be featured on Slate the week of Valentine’s Day.

An example: Some of the inspiration for this project came from Chris Verene’s book Family. Verene is the king of presenting complicated, heartbreaking love stories in just a few photos. (Read more about his work here.)

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There are a few ways you can submit. Please send high-res images or scans.

Get Slate in your inbox.

1) Send an email to lovein3photos@gmail.com. Make sure you clearly label them as Photo 1, Photo 2, and Photo 3, and then include Caption 1, Caption 2, and Caption 3 in the body of the email.

2) Post them to Flickr and tag them #lovein3photos. In the caption make sure to label Photo 1, 2, and 3.

3) Post them to Instagram and tag them #lovein3photos. Again, make sure to label them Photo 1, 2, and 3.

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4) Upload your photos to Google+ by typing in +Slate in the entry field. Upload each photo with its corresponding caption individually, labeling them 1, 2, and 3.

Deadline: Tuesday, Feb. 7 (one week before Valentine’s Day)

Possible Questions

Does the Love Story Have To Involve Me?

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The story must be about you or someone related to you (a grandparent, perhaps). Regardless, the photos must belong exclusively to you. If you are not in them, you or a family member must have taken them.

How Long Should My Captions Be?

One to two sentences. Shorter is better. Again, think of this as a photo haiku.

What Types of Entries Are You Looking For?

Honest love stories. They can be funny, unexpected, sweet, or sad. Love rarely works out the way we think it will, so if you’re honest and carefully pick out those three photos, your entry will surely impress us.

Do you have other questions? Please post them in the comments section.

Heather Murphy is a former Slate photo editor and the creator of Behold. Follow her on Twitter.